The crowd which had followed the steamer cheered lustily, and my promise was redeemed.
CHAPTER XV.
GETTING UP STEAM.
The enthusiastic cheering which followed the passage of the dummy from the water to the land was grateful to me, and I enjoyed it to a degree which I cannot express. I felt just as though the Centreporters had cast me out, and the Middleporters had taken me up. I was quite confident that there were many persons in Middleport who could have raised the dummy; but no one seemed to have thought of my plan. Perhaps few of them knew the bottom of the lake as well as I did, for diving was one of my accomplishments; and I had oftener gone into the water on the Middleport side than on the other, because the beach was better.
“By gracious, Wolf! you have done it!” exclaimed Tommy Toppleton, as I directed the captain to stop the steamer; and his mouth and his eyes were opened as wide as if an earthquake had rent the lake beneath us.
“Of course I have done it; I expected to do it,” I replied, as indifferently as I could, for, however big one may feel, he does not always like to show it.
“You have done it handsomely, too,” added Captain Underwood; and praise from Sir What’s-his-name was praise indeed.
“I hope the Wimpleton fellows saw that,” said Tommy, puffing out his cheeks, and looking as grand as an alderman. “It would take them down a peg if they did.”
“I expect to catch it for helping you out,” I added, as I thought of the wrath of Colonel Wimpleton, when he should hear that I had been playing into the hands of the Toppletonians.
“Don’t you be afraid of the whole boodle of them,” replied Tommy, shaking his head, as though he thought the other side would make a great mistake if it attempted to punish me for what I had done.